Saturday, October 01, 2016

Aline here. I'm delighted to introduce you today to Marianne Wheelaghan. She's another Scottish writer, but having spent some time in the South Seas (the background for some of her books) she seems to have picked up some of the sunshine to bring back with her to grey Edinburgh. She's always warm, funny and very engaging and I know you'll enjoy meeting her here.

Marianne:

When I was growing up there was no greater crime than blowing your own trumpet. It was considered attention seeking and self obsessed, deceitful and shallow. Imagine then my dilemma when I discovered that for us writers to succeed it is not enough to write a good story, we must also be good self promoters.

Regardless of whether we are speaking at an author event or being interviewed on social media, or writing an article for a magazine or blog, the book marketeers tell us we must “big” ourselves up. If we don't put the best possible spin on what we say, we run the risk of appearing uninteresting, dull even, and by default suggest our books are also dull.

But while I fully understand that in a world where everyone is clamouring to be centre stage we writers cannot afford to be shrinking violets, “bigging” myself up smacks of deceit and blatant self promotion. It seems to directly contradict my integrity as a writer.

Then, not so long ago, I discovered that some of the very best writers were shameless self promoters. I changed my mind – if it was okay for the great and the good to blow their own trumpet, it was okay for me.

Who were these charlatans? Let me tell you about just a few. In 1927 Georges Simenon, author of the Maigret novels, agreed to write a novel while suspended in a cage outside the Moulin Rouge nightclub for 72 hours – all for the handsome amount of 100,000 francs. While George wrote, the public could shout out themes and names for characters. They could even offer suggestions for a title for the novel. It was promoted as a “record novel: record speed, record endurance and record talent”. It didn’t happen in the end but that didn’t stop people from talking about it as if it had.

Virginia Woolf, despite stating she wasn’t interested in her appearance, went on a “Beautiful Woman” style shopping expedition with London Vogue’s fashion editor in order to help improve her image. As she became more famous she took more care over her appearance and developed the term “frock-consciousness”. Furthermore, when one Logan C Pearsall Smith criticised Woolf for writing for a low brow magazine like Vogue for money, she defended her actions in a letter to a friend saying, “Ladies’ clothes and aristocrats playing golf don’t affect my style; What Logan wants is prestige: what I want is money …Money dignifies what is frivolous if unpaid for.”

One of the oldest records of self-promotion dates as far back as 440 BC when the writer Herodotus paid for one of his own book tours around the Aegean. In the 12th century a certain Gerald of Wales invited people to his house for a meal and forced them to listen to him read from his latest work for three days! Even the wonderful, great American poet Walt Whitman felt the need to write anonymous reviews about himself: “An American bard at last! Large, proud, affectionate, eating, drinking and breeding, his costume manly and free, his face sunburnt and bearded."

Walt, however, was an amateur compared to our very own John Creasey, who, when starting out, wrote hundreds of his own reviews under different names. The best self-promoter, however, has to be 18th century writer Grimod de la Reyniere, who invited his friends to a ‘funeral supper’ that he held to promote his new book Reflections On Pleasure. When the friends got to his house, he locked them in a room and hurled abuse at them while others watched from a balcony above. When the visitors were finally released they ran around telling everyone that La Reyniere was mad and everyone promptly bought his book.

So, regardless of what you call it, self-promotion, building an author platform, branding, bigging ourselves up, making waves or ripples, when push comes to shove all is fair in love and war and writing. As author Stendhal said in his biography Memoirs of an Egotist: “Great success is not possible without a certain amount of shamelessness, and even of out-and-out charlatanism.”

And while I’m not looking for great success let me shamelessly tell you that the ebook of my latest crime novel, The Shoeshine Killer, is available on Amazon.com. A snip at $2.99, it is the only book you'll read this year which features line-dancing policemen in Fiji!

4 comments:

Aline, thank you for introducing me to a new author. As a reader I will confirm that self promotion is important. How else would we discover your books? Just bought the first 2 books in Marianne's South Seas series and look forward to reading them.

Hello Susan, a big thank you for reading the post and buying my Scottish Lady Detective novels. I do hope you enjoy reading them. All good wishes, Marianne PS and thank you, again, to Aline for inviting me to contribute :)

Rick Blechta writes on Tuesdays

Barbara Fradkin writes on alternate Wednesdays

Sybil Johnson writes on Alternate Wednesdays

Donis Casey writes on alternate Thursdays

John Corrigan writes on alternate Thursdays

Charlotte Hinger writes on alternate Fridays

Frankie Bailey writes on Alternate Fridays

Vicki Delany writes on the second weekend of every month

Mario Acevedo writes on the 4th Saturday of each month

Aline Templeton

Aline Templeton lives in Edinburgh in a house with a balcony overlooking the beautiful city skyline. Her series featuring DI Marjory Fleming is set in beautiful Galloway, in South-west Scotland. alinetempleton.co.uk

Rick Blechta

Rick has two passions in life, mysteries and music, and his thrillers contain liberal doses of both. He has two upcoming releases, Roses for a Diva, his sequel to The Fallen One, for Dundurn Press, and for Orca’s Rapid Reads series, The Boom Room, a second book featuring detectives Pratt & Ellis. You can learn more about what he’s up to at www.rickblechta.com. From the musical side, Rick leads a classic soul band in Toronto. Check out SOULidifiedband.com. And lastly, being a former line cook with an interest in all things culinary, he has a blog dedicated to food: A Man for All Seasonings.

Barbara Fradkin

Barbara Fradkin is a retired psychologist with a fascination for how we turn bad. Her dark short stories haunt the Ladies Killing Circle anthologies, but she is best known for her award-winning series featuring the quixotic, exasperating Ottawa Police Inspector Michael Green, published by Dundurn Press. The ninth book, The Whisper of Legends, was published in April 2013. Visit Barbara at barbarafradkin.com.

Sybil Johnson

Sybil Johnson’s love affair with reading began in kindergarten with “The Three Little Pigs.” Visits to the library introduced her to Encyclopedia Brown, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and a host of other characters. Fast forward to college where she continued reading while studying Computer Science. After a rewarding career in the computer industry, Sybil decided to try her hand at writing mysteries. Her short fiction has appeared in Mysterical-E and Spinetingler Magazine, among others. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, she now lives in Southern California where she enjoys tole painting, studying ancient languages and spending time with friends and family. Find her at www.authorsybiljohnson.com.

Donis Casey

Donis is the author of six Alafair Tucker Mysteries. Her award-winning series, featuring the sleuthing mother of ten children, is set in Oklahoma during the booming 1910s. Donis is a former teacher, academic librarian, and entrepreneur. She lives in Tempe, AZ, with her husband, poet Donald Koozer. The latest Alafair Tucker novel, The Wrong Hill to Die On (Poisoned Pen Press, 2012), is available in paper or electronic format wherever books are sold. Readers can enjoy the first chapter of each book on her web site at www.doniscasey.com.

John R Corrigan

John R. Corrigan is D.A. Keeley, author of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agent Peyton Cote series, which is set along the Maine-Canada border. Bitter Crossing (summer 2014) will be the first of at least three novels in the series. Born in Augusta, Maine, he lives with his wife and three daughters at Northfield Mount Hermon School in western Massachusetts, where he is English department chair, a teacher, a hockey coach, and may very well be the only mystery writer in North America who also serves as a dorm parent to 50 teenage girls. A Mainer through and through, he tries to get to Old Orchard Beach, Maine, as often as possible. You can see what he's up to by visiting www.amazon.com/author/DAKeeley or dakeeleyauthor.blogspot.com or on Twitter (@DAKeeleyAuthor).

Charlotte Hinger

Charlotte Hinger is a novelist and Western Kansas historian. Convinced that mystery writing and historical investigation go hand in hand, she now applies her MA in history to academic articles and her depraved imagination to the Lottie Albright series for Poisoned Pen Press. charlottehinger.com

Frankie Bailey

Frankie Y. Bailey is a criminal justice professor who focuses on crime, history, and American culture. Her current project is a book about dress, appearance, and criminal justice. Her mystery series featuring crime historian Lizzie Stuart is set mainly in the South. Her near-future police procedural series featuring Detective Hannah McCabe is set in Albany, New York. Visit Frankie at frankieybailey.com.

Vicki Delany/Eva Gates

Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers. She is the author of more than 25 books, including the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, the Year Round Christmas cozy series, the Constable Molly Smith books, standalone novels of suspense, the Klondike Gold Rush series, and novellas for adult literacy. As Eva Gates, she is the author of the national bestselling Lighthouse Library cozy series from Penguin. Find Vicki at www.vickidelany.com and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/evagatesauthor/

Mario Acevedo

Mario Acevedo is the author of the Felix Gomez detective-vampire series. His short fiction is included in the anthologies, You Don’t Have A Clue: Latino Mystery Stories for Teens and Hit List: The Best of Latino Mystery, and in Modern Drunkard Magazine. Mario lives with a dog in Denver, CO. His website is marioacevedo.com.